


White Slate

by x_x



Category: Generator Rex
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24605182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_x/pseuds/x_x
Summary: White Knight gets turned into an infant.
Relationships: White Knight/Agent Six
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. "Sih!"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bambeptin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bambeptin/gifts).



> first of all, i am sooooo sorry i forgot about this. i had initially only wanted to post this upon completion, but i just found it again while cleaning out my hard drive and realized i left you hanging for foreeeverrrr...! i hope you enjoy what did get typed up.

First of all, it starts with a _miscommunication_. And not on Rex's part, either! His hands had been occupied-- sort of busy blocking fire from dozens of automated sentry guns securing the evil lab they were raiding; ring a bell, anyone? He finds it awfully tiresome that every time something goes wrong on one of his missions, everyone just happens to forget that he’s saved the world half a dozen times. Oh, also he became a god at one point. Remember that?

Funny how every impressive bullet on his resume sort of gets washed out by any latest screw-up. Well, mierda happens; it’s all in his line of work. So, yeah. The miscommunication….

Intel: Evil scientists create evil lab hideout dedicated to furthering nanite development...for EVIL! Mission: Wreck their shit, steal (okay, okay “ _confiscate_ ”) their research, secure the compound. Easy, right? But here’s the thing: scientists are really-- like hella really-- freaking smart. And sure, that’s a given-- duh, keyword ‘scientists’-- and _no_ , there’s still no doubt at all that Rex could’ve handled it like any other organization formed around ill intent that he’s bested in the past. These guys just decided to make him put in extra effort.

So what, right? He’s not on payroll for nothing.

Except someone among these scientists apparently has a PhD in Douchebaggery, and had created a defense protocol that scrambles all radio frequencies within the vicinity of the laboratory. Each time Providence finds a frequency in the clear, the evil scientist defense system’s pinpoints the source and mangles it. And _that_ , Rex would like to remind anyone (everyone), is only one line of defense among several, _including_ the sentry guns and combat bots.

It gets to a point when Rex can’t find a frequency untouched by scrambling, but fortunately that’s the point White Knight arrives for assist.

Rex shouts “ _Wait, don’t-- sec!_ ” as he grapples with a combat bot to use it as a shield against the gun hail.

Only in retrospect, as he watches in frustrated confusion while White proceeds forward, does he realize White’s hearing within his mech suit relies _entirely_ on computerized audio feed. So, courtesy of frequency scramble, it is entirely possible that what Rex’s warning had sounded something more rallying on the receiving end. (‘ _White, go ahead!_ ’)

Mierda happens.

It involves some kind of laser cannon. (Of course it has to be a freaking laser canon!)

There’s the sound of a blast-- a flash of light-- an impact, the force of which gusts far enough to coat a layer of micro debris where Rex stands.

And as he squints through the kicked up dirt, he sees White falling backwards, having gone totally limp.

In that same moment, Rex recalls with sudden, gutted guilt that he’d been the one to egg White into a race to the baddie hideout-- a race that had stretched more distance between them and the support of the Keep than what otherwise might’ve prevented them from accidentally setting off alarms in enemy territory and engaging a hostile high-security site alone.

Never has Six moved so fast in their near-decade of working alongside one another.

Rebecca barely confirms visual of White on the ground before Six is upon the scene, careening on his hoverboard to keep the sentry guns from securing a lock on him. He deflects several rounds, taking out two sources of fire, before unclipping from his board and disappearing into the cloud of dust billowing around the Knight. There’s a small explosive flash, and then smoke. By now, the dust is settling. The canon that had taken down White is in fiery ruin.

The canon operator had tuck-and-rolled-- Rebecca spots them stumbling to their feet, running frantically back to the protection of their falling headquarters. Rex gives chase a few steps, before pausing to check with the other two agents on the field.

Six is crouching over White, who lays motionless.

Rex’s mouth moves briefly: _Is he okay?_ , Rebecca reads. But Six is turned away from Providence cams. Without their commlinks, Rebecca’s entirely left out. She clenches her jaw, studying the images on her screen. The suit seems whole, there’s no blood, Rex’s expression stays perplexed-- these are the only tells she has that White might be alright.

How they could find so much trouble in the few moments they’d disappeared from visual, Rebecca cannot even fathom.

Renewed cannonade outside jolts Six and Rex back to reality. Rebecca orders some cover fire. Rex takes the initiative to take offense, drawing all hostiles towards himself, while Six-- Six is still crouched over White.

Rebecca refrains from grinding her teeth, dialing between frequencies while eyeing the calibration curve on her display from the collected samples of neutralized connections. She’s never held much regard for the Head of Providence. Personally, she takes him for an asshole that the world would be better off without, but try telling that to post-memory loss, pre-six years Agent Six. Neither White nor Six ever spoke of their relationship in the past, and Rebecca had only met either of them when they’d had their falling out. So it comes as a bit of a shock to her whenever she’s able to catch glimpses of how genuinely fond Six was of his former partner. (Is.)

It’s like seeing pieces of what they used to be.

(This is one of those times, Rebecca now realizes. It’s not that Six had been moving faster earlier-- she’s just not used to seeing him home towards an enemy with so much ferocity.)

With Six in the state he’s in currently, White is the only figure of intimate familiarity he has-- much of the transition Six had faced due to his memory loss was eased along by White. All the times Rebecca was sure she’d pushed too far, demanded too much emotion and vulnerability from him, that he’d withdraw and become distant-- all it would take was a talk with White to pull him out of it.

That alone is reason enough to not let White die.

And if she had the time to overthink, she’d admit she were a bit jealous of that. Of him.

Rebecca’s fingers freeze on the radio dial, having found a fragile hairline space between channels with relatively minimal pollution. She opens a commlink.

“Six! How bad is it?”

A pause. “Holiday….”

She waits for more, but he falls silent. Static begin funneling into the frequency. Damn it.

“ _Six_. I need to know what to prepare for the OR.”

“It’s not…,” he trails off again.

Rebecca feels a cold rush of dread. She leans heavily against the ledge of the control board. “...Is he--?”

“No,” Six says quickly, but the channel’s begun crackling out.

Rebecca curses, immediately delegating tasks. She assigns one grunt to take over calibration-watching, another two to prep the OR for worst-case scenario, and then dispatches several units to continue the raid as well as collect White.

What they collect is an infant.

Six still isn’t used to feeling so old. He has memories from his younger days-- battle-weary, world-weary, and due to his upbringing, rather conversant with the ugliness of man. Memories of when he _thought_ he felt old. The actual passing of middle age was less romantic: the aches in his bones, the cracks of his joints, and an overall drag upon his body that made him just the vexing bit slower. And with it came sagging skin, the wrinkles and lines, the grey hairs….

None of the phrenic afflictions he’d associated with aging as a youth can hold a candle to somatic reality.

All of these had been present before, in the tolerable onset stage, and the end results likely wouldn’t bother him if he (would remember that he’d) experienced the developments gradually. Unfortunately, the only recollection Six has is of simply blinking awake six years older.

He wouldn’t have even believed it had the news come from anyone besides Knight. _White_ Knight, now-- and that had been an entire other issue to wrap his mind around.

“A-ba-ba…,” says the matter at hand.

...Technically, he’s Knight once again. But this time, he’s even more years away from the partner Six once knew and trusted with his life.

Six peers over to the incubator comprised from what used to the center body piece of White Knight’s mech armor. The arms and legs had been detached for convenience during transport, with White’s individualized nantite-excluding life support confined to the body piece, air-sealed tight and later outfitted with glass so that they can keep an eye on him, courtesy of both Rex’s interfacing and technologic resources at Providence’s disposal.

Holiday’s in video conference with Caesar Salazar, both of them pouring over the research data compiled from the raid, trying to decipher what the hell those scientists were trying to accomplish, as well as figure out some theories as to how Knight ended up an infant.

She came out of the lab for a break earlier, and to check on Knight, and seemed surprised to find Six in the room.

"Everything's checking out fine," she’d told him, placing a gentle hand over his shoulder. “He’s stable, healthy, and his diaper should be fine for another couple hours. And, you know, I think we both could use a break after today.”

The slow rub her fingers were grooving into his shirt felt hot to the touch, and there was a heated glint in her eyes, a sultry way about how she smirked up at him.

He hadn’t known how to decline, how to say he just wasn’t feeling up for it, without making it seem like he was outright opposed. From what he’s heard, it even took his future self years before he’d finally warmed up to the idea of _dinner_. He opted to stay silent.

And it wasn’t that Six wouldn’t-- he would. He’s gotten ideas from all the ways he could take the doctor, what with how she comes onto him, knows how to show his bed partners any kind of time they want. He could meet and exceed Holiday’s expectations, give her everything she wants.

Except he knew it wouldn’t be everything. A woman like Holiday, the way she pines for him-- she expects commitment and total devotion. Not that Six feels himself above that sort of partnership, but it wouldn’t feel right unless it came from his heart with the same fierce passion she harbors for him.

And it feels cheap to Six, to love her solely to return the love she seems to have for him. If he falls for her, he wants to love her for the way she bites her pens when she’s nervous, how her nose scrunches when she’s pissed off, how bad her blows truly hurt when they spar together. Six does love her for all of those things, but definitely not in the way that Holiday desires or deserves.

When it comes to words, though, Agent Six flounders. He stayed silent.

Holiday had been gracious. She let her hand fall away, but not without a gentle pat. “Really, get some rest.”

He’d smiled at her, attempting to convey a sense of apology. “After you.”

Holiday’s response was a vague wave as she took her exit. She wouldn’t, he knew. At least that way, Six has an excuse to justify his own vigil.

_A little older_ , he thinks. A little older, and Six will feel better about leaving him alone.

Knight’s growing at an unnaturally fast rate, a discovery which set all his closer colleagues at ease. When Six first discovered him shrunken inside the armored suit, he’d been a wailing infant. Mere hours later, the small, pudgy thing that is Knight is already crawling and sitting upright and showing an awareness of his surroundings.

He palms clumsily against the glass, smile entirely uninhibited and toothless. 

“Ba-bab!” his former partner babbles at him.

Six has never been good with babies.

Children can’t fend for themselves. They’re vulnerable, emotional little beings, that Six has always been convinced he should stay away from.

People have only ever gotten hurt around him, so it takes a particular type to actually become fixtures in his life. Holiday is a survivor, first and foremost; put her in any situation, and she’s got the brilliance to adapt and make advantages of any resource available to her. Rex is a nearly indestructible intended weapon of war; Six had his doubts at first, but the kid had an instinct for maneuvering risky situations, and quite possibly couldn’t find satisfaction in a life without crisis. And Knight….

Knight’s fighting technique was clumsy at best, and his strategies had always been more brutal than tactical-- he gained respect and contempt alike through his bulldozer force of will. The Knight that Six knew had an innate viciousness in him; a downright twisted side of his personality that very few ever witnessed. And so only in hushed whispers, did those few begin to spread the name ‘Bloodknight’.

But Knight as a child...is still just a child.

There’s a snicker behind him: Rex giving himself away as he tries to sneak up behind Six, before jumping onto the latter’s back. “Congratulations, it’s an asshole!”

Six resists the urge to “roughhouse in the nursery” (Holiday’s words, accompanied with that sharp, bright glare she has that makes Six a bit fonder of her each time she uses it). Otherwise, he’d have flipped Rex and sent him flying into the far wall in one swift motion, just to make the point that he can.

Instead he peels the teenager off him, and shoves him roughly in the direction opposite of the incubator. Rex stumbles his balance back with a bark of laughter.

Rex had been noticeably rattled by Knight taking a fall in the field, but his mood has since improved after being able to help construct the child’s makeshift sleeping pen. All it took was being informed that Knight was otherwise unharmed, and Rex came back to his usual flippant, _loud_ bravado.

"It was my bad!" Rex had reiterated again and again at the raid site, eyes lit up bright blue, hands planted firmly on White’s suit to keep the life support up.

It’s so similar to now how he presses both palms against the glass to get the small child’s attention, striking in resemblance for the contrast in mood. Before, Rex’s face had been panic stricken. But now, he grins warmly, and there’s a vibe a triumph as well in how obvious he likes seeing his former boss reduced to such a helpless state. Six supposes there must something to be said on Rex’s part about no longer being the ‘baby’ of their group.

“Hey, White, it’s hot-shot! Heyyy! Can you say ‘Rex’? Reeex! C’mon, Dubs!”

“Dubs,” Six echoes briefly.

“Da, da, ba,” is Knight’s attempt. He’s gnawing wetly on his blanket.

“As in, W-K?” Rex flashes a sheepish look a Six. “Little dude needs a name, stat. Like, a kid’s name. I’m not gonna call some niñito ‘White Knight’ like he’s a default badass. You gotta _earn_ that type of street cred in this world!”

Six feels the lines around his mouth deepen. “Uh-huh.”

“Alright, then you come up with something better! You know him best, right? Go, Six! Six!” Rex begins headbutting him lightly, circling around to rap his forehead against various points of Six’s arms and back, in odd parody of some kind of bird. Six almost wonders about the silly antic, before he realizes that Rex likely hasn’t gotten any shut-eye yet either. There is also the given that it’s Rex. “Think, Six! You can do it! Six! Six! Six!”

“Sih!” Knight chimes in, spit bubbles dribbling out the corner of his mouth. He bounces where he sits, kicking his legs in good cheer. “Sih! Sih!”

“Hey,” Rex says, and actually looks awed as he presses close to the glass with a proud smile. “You hear that? You’re his second first word!”

Six sighs. He feels old.


	2. Childhood

So what it comes down to is the scientists were apparently trying to find a way to get evos back in action. That canon thing? Something that was intended to reactivate the mutation glitch in the nanites Rex had tapped during Cure Day (that’s what people call the anniversary date; it’s an _international_ paid holiday now!) by reversing the command code. Doc explained it as a “molecular rewind”.

It’s irritating that there are groups of people trying to undo God’s Work, but. That’s life. And there will always be assholes.

Speaking of which, the world at least has one less to worry about. Rex thinks of the miniature WK inside the quarantined observation room, and quickens his pace in spite of how tired he feels from the mission he just got back from. He’d picked something up from the outside to bring back, which he’s pretty sure the kid’ll be thrilled with; the bulk inside plastic bag thrown over his shoulder bounces uncomfortably against his back, which is all the more reason to him to get it to its recipient soon.

It would take about a month before White Knight was all grown up and ready to piss off just about everyone he talks with, timeframe according to Caesar and the Doc. 

Oh, yeah, back to the laser canon thing…. When White got hit, since he didn’t have any nanites in him, the laser particles or whatever ended locking to the organic cells in his body, and attempted a reset rewind on those. And presto: Little Knightling. That was about as much as Rex’s attention span could retain, and anyway he’s pretty sure he’s got the gist of it.

“Rex!” a small, earnest voice pipes in his ear, like Rex knew it would eventually. “Where are you?”

The kid’s words have less of a toddler slur to them from yesterday; it’s difficult not to be startled by how _fast_ he’s growing, how much change he’s undergoing in so short a timespan.

Although, it’s been a few days since the incident, and yet none of them have really agreed on what to call him. By default, they’ll refer to him as ‘White’, but not without an awkward grimace. Because no way in hell is the kid behind the glass the same ‘White Knight’ who could send the average cadet spiraling into existential anxiety with a mere glare.

Rex tells him, “I am literally just down the hall, kiddo. Hold your caballos! It’s been, like, five minutes since the last time you rang me.”

“Ookaaay, but hurry!”

“Alright, alright!”

If he doesn’t show up immediately after they hang up, he can expect another call. Rex snickers to himself-- not too different from grown White, after all. It’s like a weird foreshadow of what the little dude’s supposed to become.

The White Knight of late had mellowed out, but he used to drive Rex insane with his constant check-ins and demands for reports or mission updates, and Rex had fallen into the repertoire of “yeah, White,” “got it, White,” “I _know_ , White,” “ _White_ , shove off, I’m handling it!”-- up until the point he started screening the commlinks completely.

He remembers the satisfaction he felt in discovering he wasn’t the only one who dealt with White Knight’s incessant pings, talking shit with other Providence agents about how utterly bored White must’ve been in his white room, how he needed to find better porn, or how one of them should anonymously gift him with a free month’s worth of netflix just to get keep him from hounding them all the damn time. One agent brought up the point that White had multiple monitors and possibly did all those things at the same time-- which of course led to the idea that White could be jerking it during his calls to any of them-- and that sent the entire group to tears.

The jokes don’t feel quite as light-hearted anymore.

Not now that the only remainder of that White Knight’s existence is a little isolated boy whose face lights up whenever someone, living, breathing, appears on the other side of a multi-layered window, his only visual access to the outside world. And how his expression falls whenever it’s time for that someone to leave, pudgy fingers and forehead pressed up against the glass.

The Doc can only afford a bare minimum amount of time off her schedule to run tests and make sure the little guy’s not stealth-dying on them due to any side-effects of the canon or his speedy re-aging process. And Rex is pretty sure Six stops in just once a day 1) to see how far along the growing process the kid’s at, and 2) make sure he’s not dead. Otherwise, it’s just a kid and four walls whenever Rex isn’t there to provide some company. (He tries to usher in Bobo whenever he can’t stay, but even the chimp gets bored of the same room after a prolonged time and will wander off somewhere by the next time Rex returns for a visit.)

The whole thing is so familiar in too many ways that Rex gets sick and aggressive from dwelling on it too long. His hands start impulsively searching for that old red ball to hurl against the nearest surface, he still can hear the rhythmic thump of rubber as he’d send it out again and again while listening to the noise reverberating off the blank walls, and he can feel the tension building in his gut, the restless anger born from constant _nothing_.

Rex thinks he finally gets it. He can understand why White Knight always used to find every little excuse to bitch (every excuse to talk to somebody) and start shit once a half-chance presented itself (cabin freaking fever). Anyone would if it were all they had.

Rex answers all the calls. The ones he absolutely cannot, he always rings right back anyway. Even the “ummm...nothing” ones, which he thinks might be the ones that matter most.

“You seem to be enjoying his company now that he’s smaller than you!” Holiday shouts out as she catches Rex rushing past her office.

“We got a lot in common,” Rex snarks, before realizing the Doc isn’t quite in on the joke.

“Really? You, and a very small child?“ She raises an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe. The smile on her face is light-hearted and teasing. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

“Six told me once that White used to be a lot like me.” It’s the only straw to grasp as an explanation at this point. And it’s not like it’s inaccurate. “You know, pre-whitening. Do you remember him being chill back then?”

“He’s always been a prick to me,” the Doc responds, with a look that’s half-peeved and half-resigned.

“Yeah, same,” Rex admits, feeling awkward for some reason, like he’s being chastised. White had made a name for himself being a prick to everyone. Admitting to be of ilk with someone like that isn’t exactly a source of pride.

On a similar note, he’d feel bad verbally lining up the parallels of his and White’s circumstances as criticisms on Holiday and Six’s parenting skills. Because he loves both of them, and knows they did (are doing) their best, even if he’d felt painfully lonely and unloved at the get-go.

Sure, eventually Holiday had caught on, and began pressing Six and White for more amenities on Rex’s behalf. But it still comes across as odd to him that it took so long for _any_ of them to figure “hey, maybe this _isn’t_ how to raise a teenager”. On the bright side, it doesn’t seem like any of them were going to be having kids of their own anytime soon. Especially White.

Unfortunately, shrinkydink-White is currently stuck with the same parents that Rex was most-recently reared on. _He’s so lucky I’m here to play big bro._

“Hey, Doc?”

“Hm?”

She’s already retreated back to her desk, shuffling through paper stacks, so he has to lean into the room.

He says, “Maybe you can try talking to him more?”

The question catches her off-guard. From how she goes still and her face goes completely blank, Rex can tell the notion hasn’t even been close to securing a spot on her to-do list. It becomes clear that she can’t come up with any good reason to be adverse to it, because when she answers with a somewhat exasperated smile on her face.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

The warmth in her voice is likely more for him, in the note of “I’m so proud of the person you are”, than in the thought of keeping White company. Rex almost feels guilty; Holiday’s relationship with White was less peachy than his own, if possible, but he’s sure after spending time with the child version, she’d realize the two were different. The boy stuck in isolation isn’t White Knight _yet_.

He raps on the door frame lightly with an apologetic smile before he leaves. Getting the Doc on board is most the battle-- without a doubt, she’s the only one who can convince Six to visit more often, too-- so all that’s left for Rex to do is keep leading by example.

“REX!” is how he’s greeted once he enters the observatory. “You take too long!”

It’s a room that resembles what an interrogation room looks like, only with Providence’s palette of immaculate white, on whiter still, on off-white, with some metallic-finish white for accent. Instead of a two-way mirror in the divisory wall, there’s a plane of multilayered glass where either party can see the other, although Rex isn’t under any delusion that the examination ratio between the two sides is anywhere close to even.

The few people that enter through Rex’s side come in solely as viewers. The kid smudging the glass with silly faces and slapping the glass in excitement has nothing else to do besides ruminate. But Rex has already dwelled on that-- he crouches down to get closer to the kid’s eye level and headbutts the pane hard enough that the force makes it to the other end.

Tyke Knight (hey, that one’s pretty good!) flings himself back, squealing with laughter, and rubbing his forehead.

“That was for being a brat!” Rex declares. “I told you what time I’d be back. You don’t need to call me every minute.”

He has to do a double-take. Sure enough, the kid’s gotten taller. Head getting level to Rex’s waist, almost.

“But what if you _died_?” the kid retorts, hands on his face to look dramatically aghast. His speech is stilted and every word comes out almost in sing-song; but it’s more fluent than when Rex left him this morning.

“Then I doubt a call would help.” Rex snorts. “And you’d be stuck talking to Six.”

The kid has the nerve to look cheerful about that. “I want Six talking more!”

Rex’s smile falters (because Six is a daddy issue waiting to happen if he doesn’t become more involved in the kid’s upbringing soon), and he presses his hand to the glass. “Eventually. Has he seen you yet today?”

A solemn headshake. Rex resolves to _definitely_ press the issue of Knightling-playdates with the two de-facto parental units.

“That’s ‘cause Six is a butt,” Rex tells him. “That’s what his name stands for. Sixth Grumpiest in the world. Don’t worry about that guy.”

“I like him a lot,” the kid immediately argues. “He’s cool!”

Rex bluffs an offended look. “I’m cool, too!”

“Yeah!” The kid grins. “But I’m more cooler!”

Alright, that one earns a laugh!

Rex doesn’t blame Doc or Six for being perplexed with how much time he spends with Tyke Knight. Aside from feeling responsible for him, it surprises Rex how much he looks forward to seeing the little dude. Their interactions are always simple, and it’s a little kid thing to only ever know how to be entirely transparent.

Rex finds himself hoping that adult White Knight might remember their hangs and be cooler with him too.

“Hey, I got you something,” Rex says, feeling every bit of excited that the kid looks when he spots the bag Rex had brought in.

He walks to the transfer chute to the side of the room, using his body to block the package as he takes the nerf gun out of the plastic bag (asphyx hazard!) and into the duct mouth. And when he catches Tyke Knight staring with keen interest, he begins waves his arms theatrically like a magician putting on a show as the chute closes for nanite eradication.

Little dude’s already got his hands on the receiving end of the chute as the toy gun shifts into view. “Whoaa!”

His small jaw drops and he might as well have been bestowed with a godsend the way he lifts the nerf gun into his arms. It’s a bit big for him now, but he’ll grow into it within several days. And even after that, even big kids love nerf guns. Hell, Rex got _himself_ one, too-- he pulls his out of the plastic bag right on time for Tyke to turn around.

He shoots a dart and it sticks on the glass, around where the kid’s stomach is.

“Gotta be quicker than that if you wanna survive this business, punk,” Rex snickers.

“So, when I shoot good,” Tyke Knight is suddenly quiet, pensive. “I can go out?”

...Okay, that’s a new one.

Up until now, the little dude’s been somewhat content with staying in his room. Rex should’ve figured it’d only be a matter of time before he started noticing the fact that everyone else in his life came and went as they pleased.

Eventually, he’d probably start wondering _why_ , and Rex doesn’t even know how they’re going to have the whole talk about his current circumstances of re-aging, much less his particular nanite-free self in a nanite infested world.

“The Doc can figure something out,” Rex promises. “You just work on your aim for when we go head-to-head. I’m not gonna go easy just ‘cause you’re a runt.”

A grin breaks across the kid’s face. “I’ll show you who the runt is!”

The tough part is always leaving-- a little sad face in parting-- but the little guy’s placated enough by his new toy gun that the mood isn’t quite as heavy as it might’ve been otherwise (as it usually is otherwise).

But it’s not like Rex has much else to look forward to at work. All the fun stuff happens in the field. And now that he’s an actual adult and officially under Providence payroll, it unfortunately means paperwork on top of other responsibilities Rex doesn’t have quite as much leeway to shirk as he did when he was a minor going through all the phases.

It takes him at least a few hours (the consequence for procrastinating) before he’s done, and by then, he’s ready to flop onto the nearest cushiony flat surface.

That’s when he sees Six only a bit down the way.

Six is neither cushiony, nor flat. But he’s a surface. Rex flops limply into him.

“Tyke Knight!” he exclaims.

Six’s only reaction is a blank stare, having barely stumbled, but his stride pauses just long enough for Rex to fall into pace with him.

“Something to call him for now. I just came up with it today. Y’know, when I gave him that sweet-ass nerf gun.” Rex grins, holding up his own for Six to see. Six isn’t the type to get jealous over petty crap like this, but he is the type to get irked over the mere knowledge that Rex _wants_ to annoy him.

“Wyatt,” Six counters.

“Huh?”

“His name is Wyatt.”

Rex gawks. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

“I didn’t know he wanted to be called that until he told me today.”

“He told _you_?” Really? Of course the guy who puts in the least amount of effort with the kid ends up being the favorite. Rex had been getting that vibe for a while now, but still….

“You’re upset.” Six’s rendition of ‘U MAD BRO’. (He must think the smirk on his mug is subtle, but it really isn’t.)

Rex has learned enough unreadability from him to at least be able to feign nonchalance. “All I’m saying is he’s obviously attached to you.” And enough strategy to change the subject when it suits him. “Would it kill you to see him more?”

“No,” Six concedes. “You’re right. I thought over the notion of simply waiting this out, but--”

“Six, he’s a little kid in solitary right now. He’s a human with social needs even though he’s not an adult yet. _Especially_ since he’s not an adult yet. He doesn’t even get why he’s being confined.”

“I know.”

The guy doesn’t say anything else, though, so Rex shoots his nerf gun at him-- ends up spending the rest of the evening running for his life after he lands the hit, but it’s worth the image immortalized in his mind, of the orange dart sticking off Six’s right lense.

New hypothesis: it’s just a given that White, no matter what age, will simply never be fond of Rebecca Holiday. A good handful of years older since Rex had approached her with the notion of interacting with child-White more frequently, and her sessions with him have become both easier and more difficult.

Wyatt can now hold discussions with whole statements and share fully-formed thoughtwork, sure. But he’s also clearly not as unbiased with whom he chooses to be friendly with, as opposed to his objectively polite demeanor when he’d been younger. At this time, she estimates him to be within the thereabouts of nine years old.

A major point to make at this juncture is that Wyatt hasn’t retained any of his adult memories. They were working with a child who none of them knew any better than the other. Rebecca herself had been somewhat pleased at the prospect once she’d discovered this, back when Wyatt actually regarded her with deference. Imagine, a blank slate to work with! (“ _White_ Slate,” Rex had snorted after she’d made the assessment outloud. She’d thrown her tape dispenser at him.) And yet, _somehow_ Six and Rex seemed to have gained an upperhand in the child’s bias, whereas Rebecca had gotten herself the opposite.

And Rebecca has always harbored a fierce maternal instinct; it simply came with having a baby sister who’d been born just as Rebecca herself had reached adulthood. So she prides herself in knowing how to put on kid gloves and interact with a youth on _their_ level. Which is why she’s absolutely flummoxed that Wyatt, whom she has no bad blood with at this point in his life, is so disdainful towards her for no discernible reason!

Her pen snaps in her hand.

Rebecca’s attention floats to it, briefly. She tosses it into a trash bin, and readily brandishes a spare from her breast pocket.

She was letting it get to her. But it was arduous not to, considering the child even denied his own name to her at first. That’s how much he doesn’t trust her. He’d told Six his name, was receptive when Rex addressed him by it, but when Rebecca tried? Complete shut-down.

“ _You’re not allowed to say my name_ ,” the child had told her flatly.

“ _Well, I need to be able to call you something, don’t I_?” Rebecca responded, quickly composing a smile despite still in shock from his abrupt shift in tone.

Child-White only met her with silence.

He’d always been civil towards her before, if a bit on the quiet side, and somehow it turned into an intentional truculence against her.

The change had been a few days prior, like a flip of a switch, and she hadn’t been able to place what exactly had triggered the now perpetuating animosity. Six had been visiting Wyatt earlier that day, and she’d entered what seemed like a lively exchange and a cheerful mood. She’d even made her own small joke and won a crack of a smile from Six.

It was a rare thing to catch Six so relaxed-- she’d been able to put her hand on his arm and squeeze, leaning in towards him and having him lean in to her in turn as she murmured her aside to him. A special moment.

Six took his leave soon after, and once he was gone, Wyatt suddenly became almost every bit of the adult he was set to become.

Having the mind of a scientist is a gratifying indulgement some days, and an outright burden others. This is one of those situations with weight in the latter scale. Because once a problem is presented, once a question has been raised, it’s the innate impulse of any scholar to pursue the answer, to pursue more knowledge.

And so, Rebecca’s intellect has kept her spending most her waking hours gnawing on the possibilities of why Wyatt dislikes her. She hasn’t come up with any testable hypotheses, much less sound theories.

Most of what she dredges up from heavy-handedly guessing and connecting half-concepts is simply preposterous, or fall flat in the face of context. Not to mention, the entirety of the whole problem is _ridiculous_. There is no logical reason for Wyatt to hold her in contempt, much less act out, especially this early in childhood, at least according to her notes-- what few she _has_ based on what little Wyatt says to her.

It’s all so preposterous that she feels too embarrassed to even question Rex or, goodness forbid, _Six_ for advice on interacting with a child. Especially since it had been the unspoken expectation that _she_ would be the expert, due to how naturally she normally takes to acting mother hen. The closest she’s gotten to asking for help was hedging the topic with Rex with the front that she was compiling observational data of Wyatt’s behavior. That much really is true, after all.

“And, has Wyatt ever acted in an adversarial way towards you?” was a question Rebecca had snuck into her questionnaire. “For instance, ignoring you, glaring at you, or utilizing any other microaggressive practices against you?” She’d felt her pen cracking at that point, and had to remind herself to relax her grip.

Oblivious to her stress, Rex shrugged. “Yeah. He can be a buttnugget, for sure.”

“What have been your solutions to de-escalating the situation?” Rebecca asked, ignoring the incredulous look Rex shot her for the vocabulary. She returned it with a pointed, ‘stay professional’ glance.

He relented, obviously resisting the urge to eyeroll at her. “If I keep throwing other topics at him, he eventually has a change of heart if I manage to mention something he likes.”

“Such as?” Rebecca was extremely keen at that point.

“Uhh. Shooting things. Explosions. He likes it when I tell him about missions, especially if I got to beat someone up.” Rex snickered. “Now that I’m making a list, all of it seems pretty typical of old White, huh?”

It was true. White always had a certain proclivity to violence. His philosophy seemed to be something akin to “Brutal Is Best!” Rebecca felt herself frown. So the attitude had roots from early childhood, after all.... So much for being a blank slate. “Is there any--”

“Oh! Also, Six,” Rex laughed.

She blinked. “What?”

“He asks a lot about Six. I dunno, he really likes him. Maybe all that standing by his crib did something. Like that thing that ducklings do?”

“Imprinting.”

“Yeah, that!”

That had been an awfully endearing finding. It turned downright hilarious when she pictured a grown White Knight wordlessly tailing after Agent Six throughout HQ.

She readjusted her focus back to the matter at hand, feeling a bit more relaxed. (Rex has that influence on people, see; carrying himself in a blase manner that commandeers a certain area of effect with the attitude of ‘what the hey’.) “I’m impressed. You seem to handle his mood swings easily enough.”

“Yeah, well. What else can you do, right? Kids are kids.” Rex had a mischievous grin, and Rebecca was sure he was remembering all the times he’d been a troublemaker at Providence. “And kids are _brats_.”

And such had been Rex’s take. But Wyatt’s mood swings to Rex are merely just that. Mood swings. Rebecca is versed in tantrums; Beverly had always been excitable and quite dramatic, and Rex used to act out on a regular basis during his adolescent stages. But the difference herein is the difference between isolated stonewalling episodes, and an ongoing demonstrative campaign of spurn.

There is something else going on, something she’s missing. Maybe something she hasn’t thought of yet-- but she’s thought of _everything_.

Going to Six is definitely off the table. She doubts he even notes the favoritism being expressed towards him, let alone be able to articulate _how_ he got to win such affection.

She’s even considered the possibility that Wyatt’s grudge may have arisen after she’d warned Rex off getting more toys that weren’t explicitly beneficial to Wyatt’s intellectual development. Growing children need books and similar educational material, after all. Rex had blanched at her, but conceded in the end.

And the result of their agreement remains in the form of assorted trinkets that are fairly didactic, yet still engrossing to a child. Wyatt has nothing to be embittered by. (Rex really is better at this than Rebecca ever expected.) And even if he doesn’t find the toys to par, Rex is too socially savvy to inadvertently out Rebecca as the one who imposed the additional criterion.

Thus, she’s back to square one:

Smiling awkwardly at a dour child beyond a pane of glass. Conversation beyond saving. The expression on his face is so similar to White’s ongoing glower, to an essentially mathematical degree, that she can even picture Wyatt on a screen, barking orders at her.

That’s fine! It _is_. She has a trump card this time. A few, courtesy of one Rex Salazar.

“There was a mishap in Lab B-3 today,” she mentions, amplifying her storytelling with enthusiasm. “Someone was testing a potable filtration system, when an intern slipped while transporting potassium samples. And bear in mind that the dual generation of potassium hydroxide and hydrogen gas happens so rapidly when potassium is introduced to water, and also that hydrogen gas ignites almost immediately after conception, right? Well, of course the sample containers were filled with anhydrous oil, but some of the vessels broke when falling into the filter tank-- and the potassium _reacted_!”

Wyatt appears slightly overwhelmed, but otherwise disinterested. Rebecca swallows.

“It exploded,” she clarifies.

“I figured that out, thanks.” A furrow appears between Wyatt’s eyebrows.

Rebecca feels a twitch in her lower right eyelid. “I thought you might enjoy that story.” A flop. But Rex also mentioned an interest in firearms, so perhaps Wyatt would enjoy the one she has about target practice, and she can even _demonstrate_ her aim--

“You know what I enjoy?” Wyatt asks her, voice low.

_Being difficult?_ Rebecca almost retorts, but reigns it in for the sake of remaining the adult in the situation. She really _is_ dealing with White Knight at this point. “What is that?”

“Playing outside.”

For that moment, Rebecca instantly thinks of Rex, before his growth spurt, when he got over the novelty of Providence and began rebelling. He’d taken to hiding in her office with Bobo, trying to shirk Six’s training regime.

“ _I wanna have fun!_ ” Rex would whine, day in and day out. “ _Gimme a break, for once!_ ” “ _Can I just_ live _?_ ”

At the time, Providence had an influx of live specimen to study, a new reality founded upon the recently devised Containment Protocol. Primary manager of the new jurisdiction, Rebecca had been heavily involved in the process, from categorizing the specimens and samples from dissected deceased, to designing the most efficient layout of the Petting Zoo, to oversight of data compiled from research. She’d been overworked, but undoubtably _reveled_ in the pioneer’s seat, further enthused by the new discoveries made every day bringing her closer to finding out how to get her baby sister back.

All she’d had time for back then was to laugh light-heartedly at Rex’s pleas and shuffle him along to Six, after running the usual biometrics tests and extracting whatever samples she thought she needed.

It wasn’t until everything had settled down (after she’d opened a new category of evos, _Incurables_ , with the knowledge that her sister was among them), that one day she looked at Rex-- the Cure, the special agent, the Weapon, the control sample for decontaminative nanomachines, the Answer-- and realized “ _why, he’s just a boy!_ ”. A boy given near to no practical living accommodations, forced through grueling training everyday, and treated as more a potentially dangerous subject of study than a human being.

” _We got a lot in common_ ,” Rex had said of White, just the week before.

_Oh, Rex…._

But here she is, repeating the same sins. Wyatt has every right to be ornery. (Although, there still remains the question of why Wyatt’s spite seems fixated on her in particular.)

Rebecca takes a breath.

“I’m _sorry_. I would let you outside if I could, believe me, but it’s just not possible right now.” She doesn’t want to have this conversation, not with a child. She wouldn’t want to have this conversation with grown White either, if he ever approached her asking for solutions to his nanite-free existence. She doesn’t think it coincidence that he never has.

Finally, she sees a flicker of vulnerability in Wyatt’s eyes, before he shakes it off, stubbornly returning her gaze with a leer. “How come you’re doing this? Why me?”

She’s stumped as to what he means. _That’s what I want to ask you!_ “What do you mean? What have I been doing?”

“You...you’re….” Wyatt’s eyes look shiny and his face flushes. “You’re experimenting on me, aren’t you?!”

Rebecca has to remember to shut her mouth from how long she gapes at the question. “I’m not--”

Except she can’t say she’s not, because technically she is. She doesn’t just test for Wyatt’s health. She tests for the results of the ray, comparing it to the data collected from the lab they’d raided, its effects on organic molecules, formulating hypotheses on its effects on nanomachines and if those scientists were onto something when investigating a technique to undo Rex’s Cure command on all currently latent nanites. And all those things are technically experiments.

“And I’m growing up super fast, aren’t I?” Wyatt continues. “Like, it’s only been a few days, right? But I start remembering things that happened-- like stuff that happened that took a week, or a month, or a year! And none of it is stuff that’s happened in this room! But I don’t remember ever leaving here! It’s _weird_.”

This answers a few questions. They’d already determined that Wyatt doesn’t retain any of his adult memories. All of his knowledge seems to be from the present. But now, Rebecca’s realizing that he may also be deriving knowledge and memories from his past, as he re-lives his development.

It makes more sense than the blank slate notion, especially with Wyatt’s accelerated learning. Rebecca had been wondering how Wyatt learned certain concepts and words, things he never would have picked up from Six, Rex, her, or the very limited bubble of living space he currently inhabits. White’s cells, having been rewound, are now simulating a fast forward. And this includes the ones pertaining to memory recall.

“It was my dad, wasn’t it?” Wyatt’s eyes are obviously tearing up now, although he keeps wiping his eyes on the back of his arm. “He’s the one who gave me away, huh? He always said he would. He’s an asshole!”

“No, no, of course he didn’t! Wyatt, Look at me.” Rebecca tries to keep her voice firm, but gentle, despite how bewildered she actually feels. “ _No one_ gave you away.”

It’s the most Wyatt has ever spoken to her, and the most information he’s ever revealed about himself, even as an adult. She almost feels like she’s digging into White’s past without his permission.

She had done some research, after he’d acceded to leader of Providence, only to find everything in his file blank. All traces and history were blacked out. (“ _’White’d out!” Rex had exclaimed, when she detailed this to him years later. She’d thrown her stapler at him._ ) Even the deletions of backlogs of edits encrypted. He’d been overtly determined to turn over a new leaf with his newfound position. A true wiping of the slate.

The phrase ‘White Slate’ seems to fit that beginning, Rebecca thinks, considering it’s still him, rather than a whole new reformatted drive.

“I still didn’t say it was okay for you to use my name,” Wyatt mumbles, sniffling morosely.

Rebecca’s fingers move readily over the control console in front of her.

Inside Wyatt’s room, animatronic hands dislodge from their storaged placement upon the wall. One lifts a tissue box off Wyatt’s nightside table, while the other pulls from it a tissue and holds it close enough for Wyatt to reach. Rebecca normally reserves use of these hands for testing, but perhaps that’s part of the reason why Wyatt dislikes her presence so much.

For a long moment, Wyatt only stares at the tissue in confusion, like he didn’t think they could be capable of such a gesture, before he takes the tissue and wipes his nose with it.

“Just now, you were talking about your father,” Rebecca remarks. She knows she’s treading on ‘psychology’ territory, one science she’s never found much interest in. But she doesn’t have any other idea on how to get Wyatt to trust her besides getting him to talk about himself. “What do you remember about him?”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Wyatt is calmer now, but still regards her suspiciously. “You’re messing with my memories?” He draws a shaky breath. “You’re messing with….”

“I’m not ‘messing’ with anything--”

“You’re the one who works the robot hands, though!” Wyatt protests. He really doesn’t know what’s going on. Rebecca knows he’s simply clinging to the only guess he garner from everything that’s happened to him so far. “You’re the one who always does all those tests! Six and Rex say you’re a scientist!”

Wait a minute. “...What else have Six and Rex told you?”

“That I can’t come out because you won’t let me. That I’m sick or something, and that you’d let me out once you thought I was okay-- but I feel _fine_ \-- but, _you_ won’t let me out!” He stares her down like he dares her to contradict his findings. “So you’re keeping me here on purpose! And doing brain experiments on me!”

Rebecca suddenly feels very tired, and very annoyed. She was going to have to have a talk with Six and Rex about certain misinformation.

_No, technically none of that was wrong…._

It was the misconstruing that led to Wyatt’s heated prejudice against her. And it isn’t as if there’s much proof against the contrary. Being left by himself so often definitely isn’t good for a growing child. Rebecca knew this-- especially after Rex confronted her about remaining distant from Wyatt-- but she’d just need a bit more time….

She gauges the determination set in Wyatt’s expression, sizes him up. He’s old enough to know, at the very least, even if he’s not old enough to truly understand. And besides, neither Six nor Rex were known for their tact. It’s likely best that she’s the one to deliver the news.

“You were in an accident recently,” she confesses.

Wyatt’s eyes widen slightly. That was probably something he hadn’t considered yet. He bites his bottom lip momentarily, still mistrustful, before speaking. “What kind of accident?”

Rebecca tells him.

As she speaks, she studies his expressions, his eyes, makes sure he’s truly following the narrative. He’s quite bright, and assertive; he interrupts her whenever he has a question. She also notes that he’s very serious, not straying too far from the topic at hand.

And, marginally, he begins relaxing.

“So how old _am_ I?” is one of Wyatt’s queries.

“Right now, approximately nine. Maybe ten, or even eleven.” Rebecca smirks when Wyatt sticks his tongue out at her.

“You know what I mean!”

She reclines against the seatback to give her spine a rest. “My best guess is around Six’s age. I actually don’t know how old _he_ is, either. You’re both men of mystery. I suppose you were partners for a reason.”

“Me and Six are partners?!” Wyatt’s leaning forward now, beaming, and face so close to the window panel that his breath is casting a fog over the glass.

_Were_ partners. Rebecca almost says this before thinking better. “I think it’ll be more exciting to let your memories come back as you grow up. Don’t you?”

“ _No_!” He looks at her like she’s crazy.

“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?” she chuckles, sitting up straight again. She’s getting flashbacks of when she used to tuck Beverly into bed at Wyatt’s current age, telling stories and leaving off at cliffhangers solely to relish the childish griping in her wake. Caught in the moment, she can’t help herself; she uses the animatronic hands to pinch Wyatt’s cheeks fondly.

“ _Hey_!”

The yelp and accusatory look of shock catches her off guard, and she moves the hand off, momentarily scared that she pinched too hard, before reasoning sets in, and she reminds herself that she can work the controls with as much precision as if it were her own hand. She couldn’t have hurt him...could she?

Wyatt seems more astonished than in any real pain, though, rubbing his cheek. “What was that for?!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-- has _no one_ ’s ever pinched your cheek before?” Rebecca asks, just as incredulous as he is. Wyatt’s a bit on the chubby side-- he’s got just the _face_ for it.

“Why would they? What’d I do? Is that another one of your experiments?”

“Hardly,” she snorts. Then, with a gentle smile, she explains: “That’s what adults do to kids sometimes. It’s a show of affection. I still do it to Rex, I’ll have you know.”

Even more shocking, Wyatt grins-- full, white teeth-- chuckling like he finds it all amusing. “You’re kind of a weirdo, Doctor Holiday. But, whatever.”

“Oh, really?” She raises an eyebrow. “And what exactly is a normal show of affection? What do your parents do?”

The teeth vanish, just like that. “Um….” Wyatt’s eyes shift, he starts biting his bottom lip; but to his credit, he doesn’t take too much time responding. “Um, my mom! My mom hugs me.”

Rebecca presses the discrepancy. “And your father?”

It’s commendable for a child of Wyatt’s age to be so indirect, to withhold information so tactfully-- like he’s had a lot of practice shrugging off similar questions from other adults. Commendable, and a little off-putting for the implications it suggests. Because what he says, in a very even voice, is, “That doesn’t matter, does it? It’s all in the past already, technically, right?”

Rebecca exhales, trying not to appear too scrutinizing as she digests all this. It’s not beyond her to grasp that Wyatt hasn’t once indicated that he misses his household or that he _wants_ to go back home, and has only shown a desire to simply extend his boundaries.

Also, if problems with the father are in play, that would make sense of Wyatt’s immediate draw to Six as a stabler fixture to play the role of primary male role model. _He really isn’t so different from Rex._ Rebecca suddenly finds herself all the more keen to do everything in her power to ensure Wyatt’s comfort, a feeling as fierce as her determination as the day it had clicked in her head that Rex was a mere child.

It’s not a blank slate. Even now, the slate’s already rewriting itself of original contents-- Wyatt’s fate is biologically set. But if she can cushion the harshness with happy memories during this second come-around, then it will be worth the fight for the sliver of possibility that Wyatt’s smile might last into adulthood.

“Hey, Doctor.”

Rebecca breaks from her thoughts. “Yes, Wyatt?”

She counts it a victory that he doesn’t correct her use of his name. “How long am I gonna be like this, anyway?”

“We’re looking at approximately three more weeks before you’re back to your old self.” Rebecca winks. “Literally.” (That does it-- she’s been spending too much time around Rex.)

Wyatt doesn’t laugh. “That’s...a long time to be stuck in here.”

That gives Rebecca pause. She already can see the cabin fever building in Wyatt’s psyche. A natural reaction to the intimation of prolonged time spent within an enclosed space.

“I’m building a suit,” Rebecca says. “It’s going to protect you against environmental contaminants that are specifically harmful to you, so you’ll at least be able to come outside your room.”

It was supposed to be a surprise, but what the hell.

Wyatt’s eyes are wide. “I’ll be able to come out soon?”

“I’ve got a prototype in beta comprised of lightweight materials, but still durably malleable enough to sustain a full range of motion with an airtight seal integrated.” She shrugs modestly. “But, yes. Soon enough. Maybe a few more days, at most.”

As readily as that, Wyatt’s toothy grin is back delivering a smile she’s only ever seen if Rex or Six were the one in front of him. But today, he offers it to her. “That’d be _awesome_!

Their interactions are much friendlier thereafter. Actually, the next time Rebecca pinches his cheeks, Wyatt only grins.

“Well….” Rex tempers his voice as he speaks into their commlink, though it’s obvious he’s essentially winded.

“Well, indeed,” Six responds, careful to only barely graze past leaves and brush as he glides between trees upon his hoverboard.

Rex makes a noise of discontent. “I literally _almost_ \--”

“The ‘almost’ says enough. Go back. I’ve got this.”

The pithy hitch of words on the other end indicates contention, but finally Rex just groans obnoxiously into the speaker before closing the link.

Six goes back to scanning the foliage for any disturbance.

Wyatt’s taken to sneaking out lately, and so Rex has taken to helping him sneak out, which forces Six to take to tracking the two of them down to bring them back, and has Holiday beside herself in deriving quite a bit of amusement from the whole situation. A bit too much.

When Six called her on it, just half an hour prior to now, she only told him, “Deja vu.”

He’d been about to agree, before he realized whatever reference she was making, it was a thing of his ‘missing six years past’. Holiday caught his non-reaction, kept him another few moments before he could leave to fetch the boys. “Rex used to take off every chance he got, once he figured out he could deactivate any mechanical lock at will.”

Six brought up the point, “You make it sound like he doesn’t do that anymore.”

Her smile only widened. “Wyatt does seem to have reawakened old inspirations.”

Some part of Six felt it inappropriate to respond. There isn’t any proper way to admit that Wyatt having reached his teen years has been closer to the Knight that was his partner than the solitary endgame Knight waiting to inevitably resurface. White Knight never smiled, spent most his time alone, and only spoke to anyone when absolutely necessary, and only ever about business. Most overtly, it was glaringly evident that White Knight was unhappy.

It feels cruel to knowingly have Wyatt continue towards the same destination.

Wyatt with his vividly bright green eyes and dark sprouting of blonde hair that Six truly _knows_ , features that didn’t carry over to the Knight in isolation. This Wyatt is cheeky, entirely sociable and charismatic, and absolutely rambunctious.

Mindful of his own greed, Six knows it’s only a matter of time before he actually does have his partner back. He tries to quash the overpowering sense of zeal for it, to be able to see Knight’s face one more time, speak with him, feel his presence in the air-- Knight had a boisterous energy about him, even when quiet, and it was akin to feeling the sun on one’s back. The kind of energy that drew others in, that others gravitated towards. Six had been no exception.

When they’d first met, Six had the oddest uncertainty about him. Everyone previously had been faceless targets or simply not enemies. Even his ‘siblings’ had broken apart, only reuniting at the unspoken agreement of guaranteed animosity, and they were only numbers.

Six was still a young man himself when he’d found the only other person left alive in this deathseeker’s dream of a mission gone FUBAR’d in the worst way, the only means of support this hopelessly deep in hostile territory. Knight had been cornered, on his final leg of strength, combat rifle gone dry-- and still was able to slam the butt of it into an enemy soldier’s face as a last-ditch insult and injury before the others moved in to end him.

Enter Six.

Knight had observed him as he killed, awestruck grin on his face and a hero’s gleam to his teeth. Six was accustomed to admirers; superficial attention didn’t phase him, as it always gave way to irrepressible horror at the things Six was capable of. He simply learned not to take any fondness seriously.

Six shook the blood off his swords. “Is this not to your liking?”

Knight had laughed, too unafraid and too loud than what might be more befitting of their circumstances. “More like right up my goddamn alley!”

He emphasized his point by bringing his rifle down to crack through the skull of one of the dying soldiers, who’d been reaching for their gun. And then he looked up at Six and _winked_.

“It’s Knight, by the way.” He said this while leaning casually upon his rifle, driving it farther into the soldier’s brain.

“Six.”

“Yeah. I know.”

A great deal can be learned in dire conditions, especially about whoever is spilling blood beside you, yourself, and the enemy.

This is what Six quickly learned about Knight: he was Six’s exact foil. He had no refined style or technique to his combat, while every position and maneuver of Six was deliberate. Knight fought outright dirty, while Six at least upheld some ideals of honor. Knight dove into every situation with a foolhardy rapture, while Six has always distanced himself from emotions to maintain mental clarity.

This is what Six learned about himself: he worked _well_ with it. It could have been how Six was well-versed with such tactics from others in their line of work, even redolent of a couple of The Six Deadliest, with the additional advantage that there was no bad blood with Knight. ( _Yet_ , Six is now sure to tack on grimly.) Knight always took the initiative, but whatever he’d known of Six, it harbored a great enough respect and foresight into strategy, so that every situation he’d bulldoze through (and he indeed bulldozed through every single one) was not without accordance to Six’s autonomy to maneuver through in his own capacity.

Thus, this is what Six ultimately learned about any given common enemy: none of them stood a chance.

Alongside one another, Six and Knight bludgeoned and cleaved their own mark of territory in that putative hell via their own special rendition of absolute massacre. All the more, they cleared the mission.

That had just been their first time working together.

As they got to know one another better, there had been one thing that bothered Six about Knight from that get-go (something that never went away in the long-term).... Six had never been the type to take pleasure in killing unnecessarily. But there’s not much gray area in the taking of lives: one either had the stomach for it, or one did not. And Knight was among those who had a _hunger_.

But just as strong was an undeniable intrigue.

Knight had found clapped him on the shoulder after they got their money, (Turned out, they had been double-crossed, set-up to die in that mission, and so had to kill a few more people before it was really over, but they got their money.) insisting they exchange contact information.

_“If you wanna team-up again sometime, call me, yeah?”_

Six had been the first to call, and made it a habit out of convenience due to the nature of certain jobs. Each time a mission went well earned yet another call after.

Meanwhile, Knight only ever seemed to call when--

_“--a mission’s already beyond salvage and you need a bailout!”_

_The two duck as gunhail shreds up a wooden crate nearby, sending splinters and glass flying in their direction._

_Knight actually looks sheepish as they lock eyes again. “You got me. Alright, next time I ring, it’ll be a nice, classy dinner! My treat!”_

The classy dinner had taken place after the assassination of a mob godfather. Knight had been planning to finish the job in time for dinner, but his intel was wrong, and his position became compromised. When he didn’t show up at the restaurant he’d told Six to meet him at, Six tracked him down, kicking down the mansion doors, and entering a banquet hall full of Famiglia.

“Hey,” Knight greeted, several muzzles trained on his head.

The two of them stared each other down, ignoring the angry Italian shouts surrounding them. Knight made the slightest gesture with his head, towards Six’s right. Six sighed, only to give way to a crooked smile that matched Knight’s, and then raised his swords; he took the left.

Non-combatants were given the opportunity to flee, but the rest died on their feet. When the killing was over, the banquet food was still warm. And Six and Knight ate from gold platter and utensils, having found a sole spot on the long, oaken table that was miraculously free of blood-splatter.

Knight propped up the dead godfather in a chair to sit with them.

It took a while before Six would acquiesce to officially partnering up, and that had been in the face of inclining eventuality that overhung each one of their encounters. It was even longer before Six caught himself looking at Knight a moment too long and realized his eyes--

_The dispassionate monochrome of industrial districts, the sterile gleam of surgical tools. Light glancing dully off a crumbling tombstone._

_Grey._

_He stands in front of the garishly alabaster display of what appears to be a bleached version of his partner, trying to absorb what he’s hearing-- six years passing, loss of memory, no longer partners-- but all of his focus is askew because he can barely recognize Knight’s eyes._

_Grey._

_When Knight’s eyes had only ever been Six’s favorite shade of green._

But that was all old, concluded history, Six discovered. White acted as if he couldn’t bare to look at him for too long, shut him out like everything they had between them had never mattered.

Wyatt, however….

“Rex used to have this puppy-love for me when he was younger,” Holiday had laughed to Six, back on the Keep. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s the same thing for Wyatt and you.”

They’d tracked the location of the two juvenile escapees to a rainforest, nearby where the Keep had been stationed just above a boat port to investigate a Brazilian tree bark Holiday had taken up interest in.

The latest escapade had the boys had sneak off earlier, when Six had been accompanying Holiday to one of the tribal villages along the amazon river. The original plan, according to Rex, was that they’d go out on a short excursion (Rex on his sky slyder, and Wyatt on the hoverboard Holiday had designed for him to mimic Six’s), and return before Six and Holiday got back. Rex has a tendency to put too much trust in Wyatt’s word.

Once it was time to return, Wyatt made a game of chase, refusing to come back to the Keep.

To save face, Rex had tried to handle it...and promptly lost track of him, just as Six was air-dropped into the jungle.

That’s part of the repertoire, though. Wyatt seems to do this solely because he knows Six is the only one who can track him down. Both Rex and Holiday have remarked on it. Six doesn’t deny it.

Knight of olde had the same tendencies, calling Six into catastrophic situations seemingly if just to see if Six could cut through the storm of chaos and make it to his side. Six had found it infuriating, exasperating...and enchanting. Challenging. And so, kept allowing himself to be beckoned. And each time, he was greeted with….

There.

He sees the jumbled mess of torn foliage where Wyatt must’ve broken away from Rex and initiated the mess of a pursuit. He directs his board closer, following the trail. Rex’s experience with his sky slyder shows through his eased, drifting turns and honed control over acceleration and deceleration...which makes all the points in which he fumbled and threw his balance all the more amusing.

Wyatt lacks Rex’s practice, but he’s smaller and lighter, with the lightning reflexes of a fearless teenaged boy. His trail isn’t as neat as Rex’s, but the sporadic dollops of torn bramble illustrate that he’d made use of his strengths with aggressively sharp changes of direction. Knight would be proud of his younger self.

Holiday teased Rex, when the latter initially complained about Wyatt’s mouthiness, hyperactivity, and other personality staples attributed to striplings. She told him, “You were like that, too, at that age. And now you get to suffer with the rest of us.”

“I wasn’t like _that_ , though,” Rex protested.

Six had no grounds to contribute, but he entertained the guess that Rex was referring to Wyatt’s allure to gore, astonishingly casual approach to brutal violence, and his enthusiasm for destruction.

“Yes, and do you know why?” She ruffled Rex’s hair affectionately, intentionally being rough and twisting his goggles aslant. “Because _I_ was there to keep you in line.”

That explained the flinching; Rex tends to look around for an angry Holiday lurking about whenever Wyatt steps beyond whatever boundaries were put in place during Rex’s upbringing. Wyatt, insulated by Rex’s enabling, lacks the nervous tick.

Six finds the current problem child standing atop a vine-smothered precipice, overlooking the jungle. He brings his board in slowly, to avoid giving away his presence, as he slinks behind him and hovers, waiting. It bothers him that Wyatt doesn’t bother taking his surroundings into account, just like Knight hadn’t, always trusting that Six would have his back.

_“It’s reckless,” Six chides._

_Knight grins. “What, you planning on failing me one of these days?”_

“You made it!” Wyatt shouts when he finally notices.

Each day, Wyatt grows older, and therefore more recognizable to Six. Even now, Six can mentally age Wyatt’s face; he sees where jaw with broaden, where a double-chin will form, where lines were deeper. He sees exactly where his partner will appear.

Six can’t help a slight smile. “Did you doubt me?”

Wyatt shakes his head, only looking all the more pleased. He points out in front of him. “Take a look at this!”

At first, Six believes Wyatt’s showing him the warm hues of after rain, all the sunset lights fractured and reflected and ricocheted through filters of cloud, mist, and thick jungle humidity. Pinks and pale greys overcasting the sky, with the barest hint of a rainbow overlaying the green, green tangle of tropical chaparral. He’s still at that age to find such things enchanting; he’s still a soft child.

A good kid.

That’s what Six thinks, up until Wyatt emphasizes, with a hint of malice serrating the delight in his voice, “It doesn’t stand a chance.”

Then, he looks again where Wyatt’s gaze drops into the rain forest, or at least the remainder of it at ground-level. Endless piles of logs and bolts span across a huge clearing where the forest once thrived. There’s a dark gray smoke from where workers are burning the more stubborn shrubbery. Wood processing machinery is sorting through it all, transporting tree trunks, shredding branches and spitting out woodchips, knocking down more timber still to widen the wound in the landscape.

This is what Wyatt finds entrancing.

A bark of laughter that escapes Six, despite an inkling of morality that urges him to berate Wyatt in order to curb that troubling fascination with destruction. He never could find it in himself to chastise Knight, either; a single trait, Holiday had remarked, that Six steadfastly shared with his pre-amnesiac self. To Six now, it proves that all feelings and ties between himself and his former partner hadn’t been completely severed after all.

It doesn’t help that Wyatt seems to have gotten to the ‘moody’ part of his teenhood. Holiday argues that this is when he most needs guidance and firm authority, otherwise he’ll keep pushing boundaries. True as that may be, Six has seen Knight during his most foul temper tantrums; he burns out eventually, and Six has always been patient.

“Are you ready to come back?” he asks after allowing the teen a few more moments to the view.

Wyatt’s smile fades slightly, but the look in his eye foreshadows no argument. But then, there’s a flicker of mischief. “Well, I broke my board…. So we have to share yours. I guess.”

His ears are hot red and he shifts his weight uncomfortably; he doesn’t meet Six’s eyes as he kicks at the pieces of his hoverboard sheepishly. Six doesn’t mention that the board’s engine and processor cage are strategically smashed. Or that his precarious location tells of an initial landing more planned than crashed. Or that this sends a warm endearment emitting in his chest.

“If you’d like.” Six extends his hand.

The red of Wyatt’s ears spreads over his face and down his neck. His hand is uncharacteristically skittish as his palm meets Six’s, so Six makes up for it with a solid grasp as he pulls the boy onto the hoverboard with him.

Wyatt’s weight falls behind him clumsily, and Six prompts the boy’s arm around his waist.

“Hold tight,” he instructs when Wyatt seems to freeze up.

“Um, o-okay,” is the erratic mumble, like the boy is struggling to breathe.

It’s tempting to continue teasing him, this version of Knight that is so unsure-- the advantage Six has is callously unfair. And this child is not yet the partner Six is waiting on.

But that difference is all the more startling. There is nothing tying Wyatt to him. There’s simply something that draws Wyatt’s attention towards him. Drew Knight’s attention. Six has always been aware of it, always opted not to do anything about it. He wonders if things would have turned out different, had he opted to do something about it.

“Six?” Wyatt asks, but he doesn’t wait for a response before he continues with his real question. “What’s...waiting for me in the future?”

“The rest of your life.”

Wyatt’s voice goes soft. “...Okay.”

Six feels Wyatt’s helmet press against his back. Suited arms wrap around his lower waist. If he takes a long detour, soaring back to loop around the deforestation zone, until the sun completes its setting, no one questions the time taken. He’s Agent Six after all.

Especially since Wyatt doesn’t act out for a while after.


End file.
